Foiled Again
by adangeli
Summary: Just one night each year Sam wants to be home, but it never seems to happen. At least this year she's got a better offer.


Sam shoved a handful of files into her briefcase as she powered down her laptop. The infernal device had been running like its hard drive was coated with molasses in January and her "just give me half an hour, Colonel, and I'll have it on your desk," report had taken her nearly two hours to produce. But there the report sat, hot of the printer. A quick detour by Colonel O'Neill's office and she could hit the bricks. The one night a year she really cared to be home and here she was, already more than a quarter hour late to greet Trick-or-Treaters.

She slid her laptop into her briefcase behind the manila folders and grabbed the report with such zeal that she sliced the tip of her index finger. Damn cheap paper. Damn computer. Damn night altogether if you asked her. Her good mood had been poleaxed around lunchtime when a half dozen progress reports landed in her inbox and set her behind. Reports she'd been hounding the scientists to get her for the better part of three days. Reports that, had she not been looking forward to a quiet night of exclaiming over children's costumes and handing out usually forbidden pieces of chocolate, she'd have loved to pore over with a fine-toothed comb. But, as it were, she'd have rather cut out early.

She shouldered her way out of her lab, briefcase in one hand, report clutched between three fingers and a thumb while she sucked the tip of her index finger into her mouth, and headed for the Colonel's office. Honestly, he probably wasn't even there anymore. She huffed around her affronted digit. Yes, he was likely already home passing out candy of his own and eating more of it than was his fair share.

His office door was open, and, as she suspected, the lights were off. She'd just leave the report in his chair – he really never checked his inbox – and be on her way. She barreled into the dark room and into a solid wall of surprised Colonel.

"Oh, oof!" she exclaimed as she bounced off his chest. The report went flying, her briefcase went skidding and she bit the tip of her finger as her backside connected with the cold, concrete floor. "That's it! This day. I hate this day!" She groaned. "It's like Murphy moved in with no sense of humor at all!"

"Carter?" The Colonel asked, absolutely confounded by her uncharacteristic temper tantrum.

"I just want to go home. Everything about this day has just been awful!"

He chuckled and reached down to haul her up by her elbows. "How can you say that? It's Halloween!"

She pouted petulantly and shrugged off his hands as he set her on her feet. "I know that, sir."

"Little ghosts and goblins, chocolate and movies. This is a great night!"

"I _know that_, sir," she repeated, this time with an edge to her tone.

"Your report is late, Major," he needlessly pointed out.

She stamped her foot. "I know that, too, sir!"

And finally he clued into her aggrieved mood. "Something wrong, Carter?"

"Everything's wrong," she gesticulated as she spoke, lunging one way for her briefcase and then the other for the report, complete with a tiny smudge of blood she noticed. How Halloween appropriate. "Have you noticed how every year I make plans to be out of here on time on Halloween and how every year, _every single year_, something happens and I'm here until well after the children in my neighborhood have packed it in for the night? Every year, sir. I've lived in my neighborhood for four Halloweens and I've yet to see a single kid in a costume on my doorstep. I've got candy. _Good_ candy! And I bet my porch light is on right now and kids are ringing my doorbell. But am I there? No. No, I'm not. I'm here, cussing a computer and bleeding on reports."

"Bleeding?"

But she steamrolled right over him. "I don't ask for much. I don't even complain when I'm called back into work in the middle of the night. Everyone knows I'd rather be here than anywhere else. Except one night of the year. And that's the one night when apparently everyone on base conspires against me to keep me here against my will."

She purposely ignored the infuriating smirk on his face as he said, "Conspires to keep you here against your will?"

"They're all young, sir. They're done and home by nine o'clock and at this rate, I won't even make it home by then."

He shrugged. "Kids are a little older in my neighborhood. I'm usually occupied until well after ten."

"Well, sir," she said in a most insubordinate fashion, "bully for you."

He chuckled at her tone. "I'm making you an offer, Carter. Least you could do is think it through."

The little quirk at the corner of his mouth threw her for a loop. She was mad. Spitting mad, even. Mad quite a bit at him – for no particular reason, she supposed. And she didn't want to like him tonight. Not _like him_ like him. Because her night had been ruined and she didn't particularly want to deal with that fluttery little feeling in the pit of her stomach. "What kind of offer?" she asked suspiciously. Because maybe the little butterflies in the pit of her stomach were playing tricks on her.

"The kids in my neighborhood are older," he said slowly as if talking to one of those very children, "and I'm usually handing out candy until well after ten. Maybe you want to, I don't know, throw off that bad mood and come hand out candy in _my_ neighborhood tonight. You know, see some little ghosts and goblins, a few inappropriately dressed teenagers, drink some electric green punch the old lady next door makes up in – I kid you not – a cauldron, and watch some cheesy made-for-kids Halloween movies."

Well, that sounded suspiciously better than the plans that had been foiled.

And then he sweetened the pot. "I've already got a couple of bales of hay on the front porch. We could curl up with a couple old quilts and scare the life out of the kids when they come up on us in the dark."

"That does sound like a better end to a bitter evening, sir," she said as graciously as she could muster considering her formerly scathing tone.

With his hands on his shoulders he spun her around and gave her a gentle push out into the corridor. "And look at it this way, Carter, you won't even need to swing by home for a costume."

"Sir?"

"Seems you slid into your 'wicked bitch of the West' before you came to drop off your report." But he took the sting out of his words by flashing her a grin and throwing an arm around her shoulders as they walk away.


End file.
